Pritchard, James; From Shipwright To Naval Constructor - Iowa State ...

The Professionalization of French Naval Shipbuilders
ing. The boundaries of his social status were becoming both fluid and
distinct-the first stage of any occupation's route to professionalization.49
The appellation constructeur recognized senior naval
shipbuilders as more than skilled craftsmen and reflected the inability
of a socially conservative naval department to accord the social recognition
implied in the appellation ingenieur. The double term maitreconstructeur
reflected the ambiguity between social inferiority and technical
expertise.
While we may puzzle over such carefully graded distinctions, the
gradations were real. By 1727, following the death of each of the
titleholders, Secretary of State for the Navy Comte de-Maurepas suppressed
the title of chief of construction and repairs.50 Elevated status
clearly remained more personal than occupational, and Maurepas had
second thoughts about continuing the practice. No provisions for
special education and training of master shipbuilders in the navy
occurred during the next decade. But, early in the 1740s, Maurepas, by
now a minister of state as well as secretary of state for the department,
reversed his earlier position and went a step beyond the Naval Council
to increase shipwrights' social status. In 1741, he suppressed the designation
maitre and allowed the term constructeur to stand alone to
denote occupation, rank, and elevated social position within the navy's
hierarchy. The same year also saw the chief constructor at Brest become
a chevalier of Saint Louis.51
Maurepas's intention, like the Naval Council's a quarter of a century
before, was quite explicit: "I have obtained distinguished titles for
those who appeared the most worthy in order to excite the emulation
of others and to engage young men of wit and talent to embrace this
profession, so important and worthy of consideration. But as they
might be pained to see themselves confused with ordinary masters, I
have had them listed as constructors while suppressing the word,
'master,' which in future will be omitted from their warrants."52 Naval
constructors were clearly employed doing something officially deemed
suitable for members of polite society. In Maurepas's opinion, the most
worthy shipbuilders had left the mysterious world of arts et metiers and
entered the world of the professions. By 1740, naval shipwrights met
several core criteria for their occupation to be described as a profession;
the remainder followed during the next quarter-century. Profes-
49Talcott Parsons, "Professions," International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, ed. David
L. Sills (New York, 1968), 12:536.
50Neuville, Etat sommaire (n. 39 above), pp. 396-97; and Anthiaume (n. 19 above),
p. 310.
35Anthiaume (n. 19 above), p. 331.
52Neuville, Ltat sommaire (n. 39 above), p. 397.
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